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Reason: Biden-Backed DISCLOSE Act Would Dox Donors to Groups That Run Political Ads

.....Notably, the DISCLOSE Act requires disclosure of donors to the group even if they did not directly pay for or know about the group's public communications covered by this act.

Washington Post: Senate Republicans block bill to require disclosure of ‘dark money’ donors

By Amy B Wang

.....In a procedural vote Thursday morning, the Senate failed to advance the Disclose Act on a 49-49 vote along party lines. No Republicans voted for it. At least 60 votes would have been required for the Senate to end debate on the bill and advance it…

Wall Street Journal: The Stifle Speech Act of 2022

.....Using donor information for political intimidation isn’t new. In the Jim Crow South in the 1950s, Alabama’s attorney general sought the names of NAACP supporters. The civil-rights group declined to provide them and prevailed at the Supreme Court, which wrote that “compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute . . . a restraint on freedom of association” (NAACP v. Alabama, 1958).

Washington Post: Florida brings battle over social media regulation to Supreme Court

By Will Oremus and Cat Zakrzewski 

.....Florida’s attorney general on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to decide whether states have the right to regulate how social media companies moderate content on their services. The move sends one of the most controversial debates of the internet age to the country’s highest court.

Washington Post: The First Amendment battle that could transform Big Tech

By Jason Willick

.....For a quarter-century, it appeared the law was settled: Silicon Valley’s internet platforms were private companies, full stop, with absolute control over what content to promote or suppress. As the platforms tightened political control over user speech in recent years, conservatives complained about “Big Tech Censorship,” but legal experts scoffed.

Scoffing will no longer suffice. Supposedly settled law can be altered when its political foundation erodes. Liberals now take a dimmer view of free speech than they did at the dawn of the tech era, while conservatives take a dimmer view of corporate power. That has created an opening for a frontal assault on the rules that govern America’s digital public square. Now the Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in.

Buckeye Institute: The Buckeye Institute Calls on Court to Protect Americans from DOJ’s Intimidating Attempts to Silence Speech

.....On Tuesday, The Buckeye Institute joined an amicus brief urging the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Northern Division to quash a Department of Justice subpoena served on the Eagle Forum of Alabama, which the Biden Administration issued in an effort to weaponize the civil litigation process “against organizations with whom the United States Government disagrees.”

Wall Street Journal: Democrats ‘Charity’ Voter-Registration Scheme

By Kimberley A. Strassel

.....A New York Times article this week confirmed a political reality that Republicans have been slow to publicize: Democrats are openly abusing charities to stack voter rolls in their favor. The Times story was ostensibly about “voter registration” groups worried that donors weren’t giving enough to “democracy-related” programs this midterm cycle. Read closely and you notice the story is entirely about Democrats, confirming a longstanding scheme by which foundations and private donors funnel tax-exempt dollars into “charities” that microtarget and register Democratic voters.

Adweek: Political Ads Were Already a No-Go, But TikTok Cracks Down on Fundraising

By David Cohen

.....Fundraising for your political campaign? Not on TikTok.

Insider: Old money: How retirees are funding and fueling political candidates unlike ever before

.....For years, retirees supplied about $1 in every $10 that federal-level political candidates raised from those contributing more than $200.

Reason ("Volokh Conspiracy"): First Amendment Limits on State Laws Targeting Election Misinformation, Part III

.....The Supreme Court has not directly addressed whether election-related lies (or other forms of election misinformation) can be regulated by the government without violating the First Amendment. As a result, while the Court's First Amendment decisions provide a general framework for evaluating the constitutionality of state election-speech statutes, they leave a number of difficult issues unresolved, including whether election-related speech enjoys greater or lesser constitutional protection than speech in other contexts and whether the government has a sufficiently compelling—or even important— interest in curtailing or eliminating various unsavory election-speech practices. Our goal here is not to fully resolve these uncertainties, but merely to highlight the constitutional challenges current state statutes are likely to face and to potentially guide future legislative efforts in this area.

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